Founded in 2004, The Lake County Film Festival is a multi-weekend event spanning multiple venues across Northern Illinois. The bulk of the festival takes place at the College Of Lake County in Grayslake, IL, but we also have screenings at the Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest, IL, and have had events at over a dozen other locations over the decades.
Lake County, with a population of over 700,000, has limited access to independent cinema, making our festival a vital cultural event in the region. The LCFF remains the only multi-year film festival in the area. Our patrons are engaged, eager, and excited to watch films from independent filmmakers across all different genres and walks of life. Filmmakers consistently tell us our post-film Q&As are engaging, interesting, and occasionally tell us they are among the most rewarding they’ve ever had, thanks to our audiences and moderators.
We proudly champion a wide range of voices and stories, striving for gender parity and actively seeking out diverse perspectives across race, culture, and genre. The Lake County Film Festival has stories for everybody, and we crave more work from diverse voices.
While our programming is very fluid, and depends on what submissions we receive, we are always on the lookout for shorts for these recurring programs:
Adult Situations (sexual related content)
Making Movies
OMG! WTF!
Shorts With Kids (Generally a little too adult to be billed as FOR kids, this usually features characters that are high school age, but occasionally run younger.)
Souls Of Black Folk (Generally about inter-personal relationships of African-Americans, leaning away from politics, but we did just have a film from the UK last year).
While we’re proud to have shown early work by filmmakers like Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep) and Chad Hartigan (Morris From America), our greatest joy comes from presenting a range of films—from festival favorites that premiered at major international events to intimate, DIY projects created by families in their backyards.
In 2026, we’re moving back to our original spring schedule, which we believe will allow for a tighter, more focused lineup and showcase films in our very best venues.
We’re also thrilled to welcome a new partner venue, the historic Antioch Theater, which will expand our screenings across both weekends, and possibly expand through the week as well.
We present Audience Awards for Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature, as well as a Top 10 list of audience-favorite short films. Within that, we highlight outstanding shorts across categories such as documentary, animation, and overall best short.
Our industry juries select standout narrative, documentary, and music-related features. They also occasionally recognize runners-up or highlight exceptional performances or other notable achievements.
Our Narrative Shorts Jury awards a Best Short overall and often presents a variety of additional honors, 5 to 10 each year, tailored to celebrate unique achievements in storytelling, performance, or craft.
Our hosting sponsor, the College of Lake County, supports emerging filmmakers with two $250 cash prizes, one for Best Student Narrative Short and one for Best Student Documentary Short.
